Seattle

Five Seattle City Council members declined to sponsor Dionne Foster's proposal requiring the council to produce balanced budget plans, while eight of nine members backed a similar mayoral mandate. The rejected amendment would have applied the same fiscal-plan requirement to the council's own budget amendments.

Seattle City Council President Joy Hollingsworth proposed a $100,000-a-year amendment to Mayor Wilson’s $2.5 billion budget that would fund the Seattle Neighborhood Alliance, an umbrella for neighborhood councils. The article also examines Democratic independent expenditure spending in state legislative races.

Corin Tucker discussed Heavens to Betsy, her pre-Sleater-Kinney duo with Tracy Sawyer, ahead of the group’s reunion tour date at Neumos. The interview covers the band’s first show in 32 years, the newly unearthed demo tape baby’s gone on Kill Rock Stars, and Tucker’s reflections on riot grrrl and revisiting older songs.

A morning news roundup covering bird flu reaching 27 Washington dairies, the state's highest suicide toll in 25 years, and the reopening of northbound I-5 lanes on the Ship Canal Bridge. It also covers a record $6.3 billion crypto theft, a fatal Oregon helicopter collision, and several political stories.

PubliCola’s weekly roundup reports Seattle City Council budget amendments proposing more than $80 million in new spending and questions over Sara Nelson’s anonymous PAC funding. It also covers KCRHA’s $16.7 million overspend and layoffs, plus a Burien investigation into its former city manager.

A review and interview focus on Melissa Messer’s new paintings at Spectrum Fine Art in Madrona, where the show has two days left. Messer explains how bodily poses, color choices, and paintings of close friend Ruth Bryan inform her figure-based work.

Seattle's City Council passed a package funding $5 million in aid for people living in vehicles while also imposing RV parking limits, including a ban on overnight street parking by 2027. The author, a former outreach worker, urges Mayor Katie Wilson to sign the funding bill but veto the punitive parking rules.

A Harborview nurse argues that King County Executive Girmay Zahilay's proposed budget trims roughly $2.8 million from public health while committing over $18.7 million to return-to-office space. He urges the County Council to reject the office spending and restore programs such as adult dental and monkeypox vaccine effectiveness.

Burien released a heavily redacted report showing ex-city manager Adolfo Bailon was fired partly over many frivolous harassment complaints. The King County Regional Homelessness Authority overspent by nearly $17 million, laid off key staff, and faces a city-county cost split.

Freelance journalist Joe Kunzler filed a Washington Public Disclosure Commission complaint asking whether podcaster Brandi Kruse should be treated as a grassroots lobbyist, citing her ties to Let's Go Washington and Future 42. Kruse declined comment on the complaint.

Pop Loser recaps Kacey Musgraves' two-night Seattle stop on her Middle of Nowhere tour, praising her vocals and stage design. It also covers Billy Corgan's Popcast remarks, music news, Halloween shows around Seattle and a week of upcoming concerts.

Seattle councilmembers have floated over 160 budget amendments adding more than $80 million in general fund spending, before reaching police, transportation and human services. About $26 million of newly found JumpStart and forecast money is up for competing claims, while Mayor Wilson urges one-time spending only.

— via PubliCola, ericacbarnett

A Seattle writer covered Phoebe Bridgers' phone-free show at Climate Pledge Arena with retired courtroom sketch artist Doug Keith. Despite darkness and standing crowds making sketching near impossible, the night offered a more present, connected crowd and an unscripted-feeling performance.

— via The Stranger, Audrey Vann

A Seattle show on October 29 at Black & Tan Hall explores how hip-hop confronts death and grief, inspired by Tish Gallow's planned November 20 tribute to fallen rappers. The piece surveys golden-era tracks by Ice Cube, Tupac, MC Lyte, Scarface and others about loss.

— via The Stranger, Charles Mudede

A news roundup covering Seattle's unusually dry spell tied to El Niño, new Capitol Hill murals, a Snohomish woman injured by a mother bear, and Washington's campaign finance enforcement decision. It also tracks Brazil's election result and a DOJ lawsuit over Alaska's Senate ballot.

— via The Stranger, Cedar Attanasio

PubliCola reports that Kristine Moreland and a woman helped by The More We Love appear in ads for I-645, an initiative to repeal the state's millionaire's tax, though former clients describe poor conditions at the group's Renton shelter. It also covers a PAC created by ex-candidate Ron Davis that texts voters to promote an anonymous "Lefty Cheat Sheet" aimed at the Stranger's endorsements.

— via PubliCola, ericacbarnett

A Seattle news roundup: two USPS bins of ballots were dumped at Golden Gardens, with 92 recovered and reissued to voters, and a man in a wheelchair was killed by a BNSF train in Puyallup. It also covers Netanyahu's West Bank crackdown and bird flu at a Utah mink farm.

— via The Stranger, Nathalie Graham

Seattle-based Legal Voice is suing to block Idaho's law criminalizing help for minors traveling out of state for abortions. A partial injunction remains, summary judgment motions are pending, and the group argues the law violates free speech and the right to travel.

— via The Stranger, Megan Burbank

Bono says a Dan Savage line about AIDS activists burying friends by morning, protesting by afternoon and dancing by night helped inspire U2's new album, Carnaval De Luz. Also this week: Joni Mitchell became a US citizen after 62 years, and Billy Joel says his neurologist compares performing to getting a concussion.

— via The Stranger, Audrey Vann